


Bugbear Day

by wilderswans



Series: Widomauk 30 Day NSFW Challenge [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blow Jobs, First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, Mild Body Insecurity, accidental Zemnian, bugbear death, they finally do it, wine-opening magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 18:33:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15249453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wilderswans/pseuds/wilderswans
Summary: It takes them a while, but to Caleb’s immense relief it’s not actually his fault.(Day 3 of the 30 Day NSFW OTP challenge: First Time)





	Bugbear Day

**Author's Note:**

> A follow-up to the first two in the series; takes place a few weeks after Cold Light. 
> 
> I know technically this is a 30 Day challenge technically, but I will be unable to post updates or write more for a few days, as unfortunately I find myself elbow-deep in Viking sagas and papers due for my summer coursework. Day #4 should, gods willing, be posted sometime this weekend. I apologize for the delay!
> 
> As always, thank you for taking the time to read ♥ all kudos and comments will go towards sustaining me on my continued trek through summer classes.

It takes them a while, but to Caleb’s immense relief it’s not actually his fault. A weeklong detour to run an errand for the Gentleman turned into ridding a quiet trading post and traveler’s lodge a day’s ride from the main highway of its bugbear problem, with all the various disasters that an excursion into a cave system in the middle of nowhere entail. Caleb can’t tell if they’re getting better at this whole ‘working as a party’ thing or if they’ve just gotten very lucky, but no one was even knocked unconscious in the bugbear tunnels.

The left side of his ribcage, however, still feels a little tender from when he was flung by an irate bugbear against a rocky wall, but that’s neither here nor there. The trading post didn’t have much to offer as payment, but the grateful proprietor did offer to feed and board the Mighty Nein free of charge for as long as they needed, which means Caleb is currently lounging on his good side on a lumpy mattress that smells faintly of hay in a tiny attic room, where the eaves meet at such a steep angle he’ll hit his head if he stands up too quickly. If this was any other inn in a regular town, the Mighty Nein would be downstairs carousing and harassing the barkeep, but between the exhaustion of the day and the sheer quiet of the trading post, they all tacitly agreed that they’d rather limp off to bed after shoving as much stew as possible into their faces instead of drinking into a stupor.

Well. He’s pretty sure he saw Mollymauk and Beau trying to haggle the owner’s wife into letting them bring bottles of wine back up to their rooms when he came upstairs after dinner, but he’s certain that wine is going to be enjoyed in the quiet of similarly tiny rooms before falling asleep. Perhaps they had the right idea, he thinks, yawning as he drowsily runs a hand down Frumpkin’s back. Sipping wine and reading in his quiet room sounds like the most ideal way to spend his evening, before getting a long rest.

But perhaps not after all: He can think of another good way he'd like to spend an evening. Caleb frowns a little at the rafters. Mollymauk must have worked some sort of magic on him at that last inn, the night they spent together in bed (and here Caleb’s cheeks flush with the memory of closeness, of warm skin and warmer kisses). The night that he had....well. Mollymauk had said that he was not angry, and that he was willing to wait as long as it took, and so Caleb was...trusting him on that. Part of him, the not-so-buried part that was still shackled to misery and self-hatred, frequently hissed that it was too good to be true, and Caleb did not deserve this - that Molly would see him for what he was, eventually. That Mollymauk would leave.

Sometimes Caleb believed this, up until Mollymauk’s gaze would catch his over the campfire, or their eyes would meet in mutual exasperation at some hopeless thing Beau said, and then that miserable part of Caleb’s brain would shut up for a while.

Caleb thoughts wander like this for some time, drowsing on the bed next to Frumpkin and weighed down by tiredness and the dusty, sleepy atmosphere of the little attic room. When the knock on the door comes, his eyes shoot open and Frumpkin darts to the foot of the bed before glaring back balefully at him, unsettled by the way Caleb’s entire body had twitched.

“ _Ja_?” he calls. It is probably Nott, unable to sleep alone in the little room their hosts had graciously offered to her. But Caleb is unsure if he should be surprised or not when Mollymauk pushes the door open a crack with the toe of his boot, holding a bottle of wine by the neck in one hand and two slender-stemmed glasses in the other.

“Care for some company?” he asks. “It’s too damn quiet in my room.”

Caleb huffs, feeling his cheeks grow warm. “Which is why you brought two glasses, yes?”

Molly looks at the glasses like he’s surprised to be carrying them. “Well, it would be the considerate thing to do. I’m not going to expect you to drink from the bottle after me.”

“I never took you as one interested in being terribly gentlemanly,” says Caleb.

Molly rolls his eyes, hip-checking the door shut behind him. “Gods above, darling, no. But I am interested in sharing this wine with you.”

He sets up the two glasses on the overturned crate that serves as a bedside table, and starts jimmying the cork open with a pocket knife. Caleb watches him struggle to open it for a few minutes before taking pity on him, and casts Open with a murmured word. Molly looks nonplussed as the cork pops out.

“How long have you been sitting on that one?” he asks, setting his knife down to pour the wine. It looks very good in the dim lamplight of the room - a thick plummy red, bubbles sticking to the sides of the glass before disappearing just as quickly. Molly pours generously, and hands Caleb the first glass.

“A while,” Caleb admits, giving it a sniff before tasting it. He must make a noise of pleasure, because Molly grins into the rim of his own glass. “This - this is _very_ good, Mollymauk. How did you convince our hostess to give it to you?”

“Well, you know,” Molly says casually. Caleb shifts to one side so Molly can sit on the bed next to him, thighs close enough but not quite touching. It is a comfortable distance, and Caleb finds he is suddenly very glad he is not alone in this room, and that Molly is not drinking alone in his. “I may have lied and said it was a special day for my gent and I, and that the whole bugbear issue might have dashed any plans I had of a surprise or gift, so I was making do with what was available. I still paid her something, though,” he hastens to add when Caleb turns red.

“Mollymauk,” Caleb begins, but isn’t sure how to follow that up. It is unspeakably sweet of Molly, and the wine is very good, and for a moment Caleb is overwhelmed, past words. “You are,” he tries again, and falls short. He takes a hasty gulp of the wine just to occupy his foolish mouth, stalling for time as the sweet burn rises in his throat. Mollymauk simply arches an eyebrow, slightly teasing, but says nothing aloud.

“You are very sweet,” Caleb says at last. “We do not even have any special days yet.”

“Yes, I am very sweet,” Molly agrees in a delighted, Kiri-esque tone. “And if you don’t have special occasions, isn’t it your job to create them?”

Caleb considers this. Truth be told, he hasn’t had much to celebrate in quite a long time, save for the little victories of the Mighty Nein. But nothing big - he scarcely remembers his own birthdate. He knows he would not want to celebrate it, so he’s done his level best to forget, as much as he ever can. _But_ , he thinks. Molly has a point. “Perhaps there is something to that,” he admits. He raises his glass. “To whatever we are celebrating, then.”

“Happy Bugbear Day,” Molly says with mock solemnity, and clinks their glasses together. “To the bugbears we have killed, and many more to come.”

Caleb smiles into the cup before he downs the rest of his wine. It really is good - jammy and deep and sweetly mellow, soft tannins prickling his tongue. He has not had something this nice in a long time.

He looks at Molly, reaching to refill their glasses, the dangling bits of his jewelry gleaming in the lamplight and bites his lip.

He has not had something this nice in a _very_ long time.

“Mollymauk,” he says, clearing his throat. “Mollymauk, would you - would you want to spend the night?”

Molly raises his eyebrows, and Caleb feels a deep flush creep up the back of his neck. “I mean,” he says, suddenly alight with nerves. “With me. Here. Er - tonight. Not another night. Unless you wanted to - in the future -”

Before Caleb can say anything else embarassing and awkward Molly leans to set his glass on the overturned crate, and takes Caleb’s free and slightly sweaty hand between his own. He brings it up to his lips, kisses the knuckles delicately. “Darling, I would love to spend the night with you.” Caleb relaxes by increments, before Molly looks up at him through his draping curls and shoots him a little smirk. “Well, this is all very romantic - quaint little room, a bottle of wine, the corpses of bugbears scattered in our wake. Are you trying to proposition me?”

Caleb is sure he turns a red deep enough to rival the Ruby of the Sea; he clamps his lips together and stares down into his wine. Something must click for Mollymauk, because he says, “oh” very softly, and releases Caleb’s hand. He moves closer until their thighs are touching, there is no room for Caleb to retreat so he figures he needs to bear through the mortification and very likely Mollymauk’s imminent rejection. Sleeping together is one thing, he is comfortable with that. But it has likely been long enough for Mollymauk to change his mind, he thinks, because he has been dragging his feet long enough for anyone to lose interest.

“Are you sure, Caleb?” is what Molly says instead of the terrible things Caleb’s mind has cooked up. He sets his hand on Caleb’s knee, squeezing briefly. “We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to.”

“I’m sure,” Caleb says. He still can’t bring himself to meet Molly’s eyes. “I - I have wanted this, and I thought -”

“Don’t feel pressured to do anything you’re not ready for just because it’s Bugbear Day,” Mollymauk says, with the slightly desperate tone of someone trying to save a hopelessly awkward conversation with a touch of humor. Caleb shakes his head.

“It is Bugbear Day,” he says, trying to parse his thoughts into coherency, into something that makes sense. “But it is also - you have been so kind, and brought me wine, and I want you.” He bites his lip, staring at the floorboards. “I think - I think I would like more things to celebrate. With you. If - if you want.”

“Would you please look at me, Caleb?” Molly asks. Caleb hesitates before bringing his eyes up to meet Molly’s, shivering at the intensity he feels descending onto him when their gazes lock. Molly makes his intentions clear, moving slowly and giving Caleb plenty of time to back away when he leans forward to brush their lips together - a brief press, then another, and the tension dissolves from Caleb’s body with a sigh when they begin to kiss in earnest.

For some time Caleb loses himself in Mollymauk’s touch, the soft insistence of his mouth - never demanding but never outright yielding either, a crush of lips that grows firmer and more confident the longer they sit on the lumpy little mattress in the attic room, the air around them growing heated. Caleb feels himself grow even more flushed. Mollymauk tastes of the wine they’ve been drinking and smells of woodsmoke and strong soap from when he presumably scrubbed off the grime of the bugbear tunnels hours ago. Without thinking Caleb brings his hand up, suddenly gripped with the urge to touch, and winds Mollymauk’s curls between his fingers. His hair is much softer than Caleb thought, and he’s seized with the ludicrous thought that he’s possibly never felt anything this soft, this good, in his life.

He wonders, as Molly deepens the kiss with an experimental sweep of his tongue, if that is something worth celebrating.

“Is this good?” Molly asks, when they break for air. Caleb feels distinctly hot under the collar, and suspects Mollymauk is in a similar state. He nods.

“Do I look like I am complaining?” he responds, and sees the brilliant flash of Molly’s smile right as he pulls him in for another kiss.

Something about it seems easier this time; the good feeling of being held so tenderly bolsters Caleb as Molly tugs him closer, beginning to toy with the hem of his shirt, curious fingers wandering. For a moment Caleb wonders if he’ll shut down again, but truth be told, it is the furthest thing from his mind. He is here, with Molly, solid and present, coasting on the warm rush of kissing, of indulging the notion - not new or surprising, but one that still takes him aback - that he is wanted.

“Stop, stop,” he has to hiss a few minutes later, shying away from the press of Molly’s fingers. The tiefling instantly yanks his hand away from where it had crept up beneath Caleb’s shirt, all but throwing himself off the bed.

“I’m sorry,” Molly says immediately. “Was that not all right?”

“ _Ja_ , _ja_ , it was all very lovely but -” Caleb has to pause, hissing a breath of pain when he rolls his shirt up to reveal a book-sized bruise high on his side, freshly purple beneath the thin layer of skin. “This is....still tender,” he admits.

Molly leans forward and spans his fingers across the expanse of Caleb’s ribs, touch so soft it almost doesn’t register. Caleb feels his heart rate ramp up, thudding awkwardly in the hollow of his throat when Molly ducks his head to the side and brushes his lips across the bruise. His own hand trembles when he brings it up to Molly’s warm cheek; the tiefling closes his eyes and butts his head against Caleb’s palm, so much like a cat that Caleb huffs a rib-searing chuckle, stroking his fingers down the lines of Molly’s tattoo.

When he traces a gentle line down Molly’s jaw to his neck, Molly makes a noise in the back of his throat that makes all of Caleb’s blood begin to race again, like it had been before his bruise had interrupted the evening’s progression.

“Will your side be okay if we...?” Molly asks, trailing off. Caleb nods, heart in his throat, and Molly gives him a sly little smile. “You agreed and I didn’t even finish the sentence. Maybe I was about to suggest we both go commit highway robbery -” but he breaks off laughing when Caleb gives him a little shove that could almost be described as playful, emboldened by the wine and close proximity and the sheer goodness of how he feels right now.

“We _could_ go commit acts of hooliganism,” Caleb says, “but something tells me we’d both rather stay right here.”

“I don’t know,” Molly says thoughtfully, already leaning back and beginning to shed his coat before starting on his boots. “I think you would make for a very dapper highwayman.”

Caleb begins to respond, but the words die in his throat as Molly stands to strip in front of him, moving in efficient yet strangely graceful motions. He pauses to fold his ludicrous coat before setting it on the spindle-legged chair tucked into the corner of the room near the single window, but everything else ends up in a heap at the foot of the bed, and within a matter of moments Caleb’s gaze is greeted by endless lavender skin and pale crescents of scars, the intricate designs of his tattoos yielding details Caleb had never noticed before. Caleb can’t bring himself to look anywhere below Molly’s navel, but either way, the tiefling now stands at ease before him, hip cocked and the shadow of a smile on his mouth.

“I’m afraid you are a hard act to follow,” Caleb says, standing a little awkwardly to tug his linen shirt the rest of the way off. He tries not to feel self-conscious as he is keenly aware of Mollymauk’s gaze on him as he undoes his trousers, bending with a hastily-silenced breath of pain from his bruised ribs. Mollymauk seems so at ease in his own skin; Caleb tries not to think of what Molly must be thinking of him as he picks the rest of his clothing off piece by piece. He almost does not want to turn around to face Molly when he’s fully bare, feeling one step away from being flayed open and exposed for judgement. He grits his teeth and does it anyway.

Molly’s expression is - there is so much in it. Caleb doesn’t know how to parse everything his expressive face is saying; he wants to look down and avoid Molly’s eyes. He would, except the moment his chin ducks down Molly closes the distance between them and tilts his chin back up with gentle fingers, until they’re looking at one another. Something reverent is in his eyes.

“You, Caleb Widogast, are quite beautiful,” he says. His tone is firm, simple, no room for argument. Caleb feels himself go red to the tips of his ears.

“I preferred it when we were kissing,” Caleb mutters, to which Molly barks a laugh and ducks in to press a kiss to his nose.

“You’d rather have kisses than entirely honest, happily-given compliments?” he asks incredulously. Caleb wrinkles his nose and rolls his eyes, but leans into Molly’s touch anyway when the tiefling begins to kiss him again.

With the barrier of clothing removed Caleb finds himself pressing closer, seeking the warmth of Molly’s skin in the slightly chilly little room. Molly’s hand comes up to wind in his hair, the other goes to his hip and - with the gentlest suggestion of pressure - Molly begins to walk them both back to the bed.

When the back of his knees hit the edge of the mattress Caleb’s breath catches. He’s expecting - he doesn’t know what. Half of him thinks he’ll go blank and vacant again. The other half, the half who has spent so long wanting and scarcely believing this could actually happen, is determined to stay in the moment, to follow these sparks wherever Molly’s skin touches his. Carefully, still absorbed in the slow press of lips and the slide of wine-reddened tongues, Caleb yields and climbs back onto the bed, scarcely breaking contact with Molly.

For a moment all they do is continue kissing. Caleb’s perfect memory is in a scramble to catalogue all of the various sensory details happening in the space of a single moment: The feeling of the sheets against his back, the obscene sound of mouths meeting, the taste of him on Caleb’s tongue. Caleb lets his legs fall to the sides of Molly’s hips, inviting more contact, and hears as well as feels the gutted sound Molly makes into his mouth.

“Mister Mollymauk,” Caleb says, in the space of a breath between kisses. He scarcely recognizes the sound of his own voice - breathless, almost sultry. The sheer sensuousness of his own voice makes him flush, let alone the very evident erection currently pressing into his hip.

“Mister Caleb?” Molly asks, eyebrows raised. There is an unspoken question in his eyes, Caleb realizes after a moment: _Do we need to stop?_

“I -” Caleb begins, and bites his lip. “I don’t have anything for....this.” He gestures, perhaps unnecessarily, between their bodies. “And while I do not doubt you came unprepared...”

Molly’s mouth quirks in thought. “Well,” he begins, shifting his hips. Caleb shivers at the drag of hard flesh against his skin, barely restrains his own hips from thrusting up to meet Molly's. “To be honest, I didn’t want to be presumptuous. And, ah, I haven’t had anything that would ease the way since we were in Zadash, so -”

“Hmm.” Caleb’s active mind is already humming with possible alternatives, some of them far less pleasant than others. There is bound to be cooking oil downstairs, there is lamp oil in the room but - no, he decides firmly. He thinks if they have to break to search for lubricant he’ll manage to talk himself out of bed. “I’m afraid I don’t have any solutions,” he admits.

Molly’s lips are warm on his forehead. “Quite all right,” he says cheerfully. “There are other things we can do.”

With that, he gives Caleb a wink and shuffles backwards, until his feet are on the floorboards while the upper half of his body lies between Caleb’s hips, propped up by his elbows. A jolt of arousal courses through Caleb as he realizes -

“Just say if you want me to stop,” Molly says, before his lips part over the head of Caleb’s cock, so hard he’s beginning to leak clear fluid. Caleb claps a hand over his own mouth in an attempt not to shout, doesn’t even know if he manages to stifle the noise in time. The sensation is overwhelming, all of it - wet heat tenderly fitting around the head before sliding down to engulf him, Molly’s hand coming up to grasp him at the base, working what doesn’t fit in his mouth. He digs his fingers into the sheets, keening as Molly’s head begins to bob, ever so slightly, as if testing the waters.

Caleb wants so badly to look down, to see what Molly’s doing, but knows he will come embarrassingly soon if he does. It’s been so long. He has been living primarily in his own head and intellect for so long he’s forgotten what it’s like to be sling-shot into something as sheerly physical as this. It makes his toes curl. Molly makes a pleased little sound in his throat, as if he knows the effect he’s having on Caleb, and Caleb feels like he is going to _die_.

He must make a noise, something horrible and desperate and embarrassing, for Molly pulls off of him. Caleb’s hip twitch, he wants to cry at the loss of sensation. “You all right, darling?” he asks, patting Caleb’s thigh.

It takes Caleb a moment to respond. “Gods, Mollymauk.” He’s embarassed at how thin and needy his voice is, but Molly must like it, because he chuckles before lowering his head again, this time tonguing the head of Caleb’s cock like it’s some sort of rare delicacy before swallowing the rest of him. Caleb gasps when Molly’s tongue curls against him, against the sensitive veins. Dimly, Caleb realizes he’s thrown the hand not occupied with the sheets over his eyes, as if blocking his vision will help him last through the rushing tide of pleasure threatening to sweep him away. He’s aware he’s panting, can’t seem to catch his breath because every time he tries to focus on breathing Molly does something that stops the very air in his lungs.

Molly’s hands come up to frame Caleb’s hips, stroking long nails lightly down the lines of his hipbones, before pressing him down against the mattress, unyielding against the weak thrusts Caleb makes up into Molly’s mouth. At the same time, he gives one firm pull of suction - Caleb can imagine his cheeks hollowing out, his bruised lips pursed around him - and that’s enough to set Caleb off. He gasps shakily, hears himself panting, _ah-ah-ah_ in the quiet room as he pulses against Molly’s tongue. His entire body feels like it’s filled with electricity, with frenetic energy; Molly’s grip doesn’t let up on his hips and he needs so desperately to move as he comes. His hands scrabble in the bedsheets, his toes curl, his dry mouth works open and shut as his ears fill with white noise.

Moments later he’s blinking back into awareness, heart still pounding. One hand has curled of its own accord around Molly’s right horn. He releases it, feeling guilty.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, feeling the back of his neck prickle. He is suddenly very sweaty.

Still between his spread legs, Molly’s wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “What for?” he asks. His voice is wrecked, but nevertheless he sounds very pleased with himself.

“That -” Caleb mumbles. “I should have given you more warning.”

“Caleb, darling,” Molly says, hoisting himself back up onto the bed so he and Caleb are eye to eye. “I hope it hasn’t escaped your attention that I was very much trying to get you to come in my mouth.”

“Oh,” says Caleb, a little weakly. His cock gives a feeble twitch of interest at what Molly said, but he is far too wrung out to manage anything more. Part of him wishes he’d managed to keep his eyes open through it, so he could see how Molly looked through it all.

“Are you okay with me kissing you?” Molly asks. Caleb nods, and closes his eyes again when Molly’s tongue, now bold with familiarity, sweeps across the seam of his lips. He opens to meet it, and is almost startled by the taste. It is not the most unpleasant thing he’s ever tasted, he thinks after several languid moments of kissing, his heart rate approaching something more normal.

“What would you like?” Caleb asks, voice hushed, when they part. He can feel Molly against him, firm and hot against his thigh. “I uh - I am not sure how to do that, but I could try,” he offers.

To his surprise, Molly shakes his head, flopping to Caleb’s side on his back. “Not tonight, but definitely some other time,” he says. “If I could have your hand, though?” The entire time he searches Caleb’s face, presumably in an attempt to divine whether Caleb will tap out.

This, Caleb knows how to do. He does not miss the jolt of sheer delight on Molly’s face when he licks a broad, wet stripe up his palm and wraps it around Molly’s cock, the angle a little awkward at first, so unlike touching himself. Molly’s eyes flutter closed and a breathy little moan escapes him when Caleb tightens his grip a fraction and gives an experimental stroke.

“That’s,” Molly begins. He swallows. “That’s good, darling, that’s perfect.” Caleb flushes with the praise, repeating the motion. Molly’s hips thrust up against his next stroke, and within seconds they figure out a smooth rhythm, Molly’s hips pumping forward in perfect time to the movements of Caleb’s hand. His strokes grow easier as Molly, if possible, gets even harder, pearly liquid gathering at the head of his cock to create an easy slide of skin against skin.

As an experiment, Caleb adds a brief twist at the end of every stroke. It was what he liked when he was younger; if the hastily bitten-off curse Molly chokes out is any indication, it goes over very well with him as well.

“Caleb,” Molly gasps, when Caleb does it again. “Caleb - Caleb, _please_ -”

He doesn’t elaborate what the _please_ is for, merely breaks off into a helpless, heartfelt sort of groan. His eyes are shut, hips mindlessly following the motion of Caleb’s hand, and in a brief instant Caleb feels an earth-shattering sort of power: He’s making someone feel good, he’s making _Mollymauk_ feel good, so good he can barely speak. Caleb speeds the motion of his hand and Molly’s mouth falls open.

“Come on,” Caleb murmurs to him. His lips brush against the shell of Molly’s ear, eliciting a full-body shiver from him. “Come on, Mollymauk, for me -”

Molly gives a keen that softens into a gasp, brows knit together as he gives one final thrust into Caleb’s hand. Caleb can feel him _throb_ right before he comes, shaking helplessly against him, wet heat filling the loose grasp Caleb has around the head of his cock before running down his fingers. Molly’s chest heaves, his mouth falls open as he comes down, hands tightly curled around fistfuls of bedsheets.

It’s some time before either of them speak. The tiny room is humid now, almost stuffy. It's a punch to the gut when Caleb sits up in bed and realizes that the room even  _smells_ like them now, and a little aftershock of arousal jolts through his core. Molly drifts for a few minutes while Caleb shuffles off to find something to wipe his hand on. He settles for an old fistful of rags drifting somewhere along the bottom of his pack, hastily cleaning himself off as the sweat on the back of his neck begins to cool off.

“Did you mean to do that?” Molly asks. He sounds a little tremulous, or faint. Caleb straightens, dropping his pack and wincing as his bruised ribs are stabbed through with pain at the movement, reminding him abruptly that they’re there.

“Did I mean to do what?”

“You were speaking Zemnian there, at the end,” says Molly. He stretches out before rolling onto his side to face Caleb. Every motion of his is languid, and, to Caleb, perhaps just a bit self-satisfied.

“Oh,” Caleb says, blinking. “I didn’t realize I was. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t say I was complaining,” Molly says, the corner of his mouth quirking in a sleepy half-smile. “It was very commanding; I enjoyed it. Unless, of course, you were calling me names while you had me naked and panting.”

“I would never call you names,” Caleb says, turning around. The half-filled bottle of wine on the nightstand catches his eye just as he’s about to climb back onto the bed. He divides the last of it between the two glasses before returning to bed.

“Well, never say never,” Molly says, taking the glass Caleb offers him with a nod of appreciation. “It’s a thing for some people.”

“Zemnian?” Caleb blinks.

“Name-calling,” Molly shrugs, taking a sip. “Can’t say I’ve tried it before but it gets some people off, apparently.”

Caleb takes a sip of his own wine, for lack of things to do with his hands. Now that the sweat is cooling and the heady rush of sex is wearing off, a horrible, awkward feeling is starting to loom over him. What happens now? What is he supposed to do now? He drinks again, feeling the urge to sink into the mattress when a warm hand drapes across his thigh, squeezing briefly.

“Hey,” Molly says. His eyes, his tone, all hushed and tender. “Would you like me to leave?”

Caleb shakes his head. Molly exhales, and something in it sounds like relief. “Good. I don’t know if you’re a cuddler after sex - I’m good either way, but I don’t think I could drag myself out to get dressed and leave if I tried.”

“Nein, no, please, stay,” Caleb says. “That was - thank you. I hope you -” _liked it too_ is what he wants to say, but then wants to hit himself upside the head for being oblivious. Of course Molly liked it; he wouldn’t have come all over Caleb’s hand if he hadn’t.

“That was wonderful,” Molly says, because Caleb must sound embarassingly desperate for confirmation anyway. “You were wonderful. I would like to do this again, by the way,” he adds. “Just so we’re on the same page.”

“ _Ja_ ,” Caleb says, all in a sigh. “I would like that too.”

Careful not to spill their wine, Molly leans in for a kiss. Some of the embarassment and hesitation burns off at the firm press of his lips, solid and sure. Like he’s sure of Caleb, of what they’re doing.

“Next time, however,” Caleb says against Molly’s lips, “I ask that we skip the bugbears beforehand.”

There’s a beat of silence before Molly dissolves into laughter, soft and warm against his mouth, before kissing him again.


End file.
